


In Case The Scene Stays Nasty #7

by softlyforgotten



Series: fistfights! [7]
Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco, The Young Veins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-23
Updated: 2010-08-23
Packaged: 2017-10-22 23:53:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/243959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softlyforgotten/pseuds/softlyforgotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two years later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Case The Scene Stays Nasty #7

It's a strange adjustment to make, because they'd broken up so frequently in the first two years of actually acknowledging that they had a relationship, of sorts. Ryan finds it hard not to believe that it's only temporary, but a year passes, and eventually he forces himself to understand that they're done. He goes out on dates, and even has a steady boyfriend for a while. Alex Greenwald is kind of awesome, but Ryan's huge crush doesn't change into anything but a crush, and they end on friendly enough terms.

Unlike Ryan and Brendon, who don't speak to each other. "It's not that I don't," Brendon had begun, that horrible night, and then he had stopped, and shoved his hand roughly through his hair, like he did when he was trying not to cry, and he'd finished weakly, "I don't know if I know how to be friends with you." Ryan knows that Spencer and Jon still talk to Brendon, and it's impossible not to hear second-hand gossip almost him almost constantly – that he's dating someone, several someones, some of them girls (and Ryan had always thought he was the straighter one out of the two).

They'd been apart for almost two years when Ryan's book is published. It had been written in a fervour of sleepless nights, the whole thing completed in only five months, Ryan trying to make sense of what a life could be without Brendon. It's not a very happy book – people say things about it like _a dark look at a world coming to its end, and a man who does not notice it_ and _written in compelling, urgent prose,_ This Long End _does not give in to the temptation of a redemptive finale, instead spiralling down into madness and catastrophe_ – but to Ryan's continual astonishment, it sort of becomes an overnight literary success.

A week after it hits the shelves, Ryan gets a text message from an unfamiliar number.

 _told you so_ , is all it says, but Ryan doesn't need any clarification. He knows exactly who had told him all along, who had sat up long nights and listened to every rambling, depressed spiel about never being able to finish anything, to properly edit something to make it good enough. It's horrible, Ryan thinks, the way the text both impacts him very little (two _years_ , he thinks, such a long time, and he hasn't had trouble being happy for nearly a year) and too much (Brendon, out of nowhere, finding new ways to slide up and punch him in the face).

Also, even though he always knew it would probably happen when he wrote it, he's a little embarrassed about the dedication. _For my dad_ , it says, _and for the other ghost I don't know how to banish._ In the end, he just replies, _thanks_. It's barely been a minute later when he gets the response: _let me take you out for a congrats drink._

It's a scary night, a week later. There's been nervous anticipation buzzing in his stomach all day and it's making his heart beat way too fast when he gets to the bar. For a moment he just stands still in the doorway, and then somehow Brendon senses him and turns around at the bar, and he smiles so big and so genuine. Ryan thinks, _fuck you fuck you fuck you_ and still goes over to him, doesn't know how not to.

It's a nice night, it is, they surprise each other with that. They surprise each other with the way that there's no big fights, that even though they skirt around the topics of dating and stuff they can still talk fluently, still shout over each other in order to get to keep their side of the conversation going.

It's a surprise, too, when Brendon walks him home, when Brendon pauses outside his apartment (it's a new one, Ryan couldn't afford to stay at their old one once Brendon had left, and he didn't want a new roommate) and Ryan finds himself inviting Brendon up for coffee. They end up in bed together almost accidentally, Brendon gasping in his ear, "I swear, I didn't plan this," and Ryan thinks, _no, but you knew that if we – we both knew what we've always been, for each other_.

Two months pass. They fool around a bit, and then ignore each other, a strange step back in time five years. Then Brendon turns up on his doorstep one Saturday morning, looking like he hasn't slept the whole night before, and says, "I don't know what you want, what, what you feel, or – but I'm in love with you, I'll always be in love with you," and Ryan takes a shaking step forward and they clutch at each other, wide-eyed and terrified, and Ryan thinks, _this is it_.

Irony of ironies: they're actually a lot more relaxed, that second time round. There's less fighting, less Every Moment Must Mean Something Oh My God. It's pretty awesome, all the same.


End file.
